Rudin and Quinn Are Laughing All The Way To The Bank

Bill Rudin Gang Laugh at Us ; Meanwhile, We Still Need A Hospital

Activists and community members showed up for the first day in an on-going protest and vigil outside the Rudin Management Company's luxury condominium sales office at 120 West 12th Street, at one of the Manhattan buildings that used to comprise the campus of St. Vincent's Hospital.

In a separate action, started by LGBT civil rights activist Alan Bounville, the community is being asked to take part in a phone zap against Rudin Management Company. Mr. Bounville is asking that everybody contact John Gilbert, the COO of Rudin Management Group by calling 1-212-407-2400 and by e-mailing : jgilbert@rudin.com

"Please join the masses and flood Rudin Management Company's phone and email this week so they are aware of the growing wave of public disgust with them stealing a hospital from the community!" urged Mr. Bounville.

Record your phone calls, upload the sound files, and copy and paste your e-mails and links to the Rudin Phone Zap Facebook event page.

The economics of the Rudin luxury condo conversion plan for St. Vincent's is proving to be a very lucrative real estate development plan. Rudin paid $260 million for the St. Vincent's campus, and it obtained $525 million in construction financing for the project. If you combine these two figures, then the total cost going into the luxury condo conversion is about $785 million. If Rudin sells the luxury condos and townhouses for a combined value of over $1 billion, then it would be very easy for Rudin to net well over $200 million in profit from the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital.

The lure of profit well in excess of $200 million during this Great Recession may be one reason that Rudin has spent easily over $200,000 on hiring the real estate lobbyist Melanie Meyers and made a bundle of approximately $30,000 in donations to the 2013 mayor campaign of Christine Quinn.

The lure of profit well in excess of $200 million during this Great Recession has also triggered a possible fraud probe. Two months ago, The New York Post reported that the Manhattan District Attorney was investigating whether hospital executives intentionally let St. Vincent’s fail, so that the Rudin could buy the hospital’s real estate on the cheap.  

No wonder that William Rudin and City Council Speaker are laughing all the way to the bank, while community members are stuck in crosstown traffic or suffering through long Emergency Room wait times in order to get emergency medical attention.

Four Activists Arrested at Sit-In at St. Vincent's Hospital

This morning, NYPD arrested four activists, who protested the closing of St. Vincent's Hospital. Politicians, on whose watch the hospital closed, remain at-large.

Watch a YouTube video of the protesters, as they were taken into police custody. While they were being put into the back of the police van, the activists shouted : "Land-lock St. Vincents ; Trauma 1 now !"

A group called Hands Off St. Vincent's held a sit-in Tuesday morning at the shuttered medical center. At approximately 10:30 a.m., four activists were arrested. It is not known how many other activists took part at the demonstration.

Among the protesters, who were arrested, were LGBT civil rights activists Iana Di Bona and Alan Bounville. Following is the statement from a press release, which was distributed to the media, by one of the group's members :

New York, NY – On February 8, at 10:30 am, four former patients and impassioned community members entered the building at the location of the closed down Saint Vincent's Hospital. These activists then sat on the ground, unfurling a banner that read, "Guilty : Neglect !" and began to chant - refusing to move. Saint Vincent's personnel closed off that section of the building - currently operating as a Credit Union - and refused entry to members of the credit union as well as persons employed within the building. Two hours after their arrival, the four activists were arrested and taken away by the police.

For 284 days, 1.3 million New Yorkers have been without a hospital in the West Village. Since St. Vincent’s illegal closure on April 30, 2010, the community has been laden with false promises, patronized with a bogus needs assessment and forced, with tragic consequences, to seek emergency or medical care at already overcrowded uptown or East-side hospitals.

“Everyday that passes is critical,” said Iana Di Bona, one of the arrested activists, “Our elected officials have the ability to turn things around, yet they do nothing. It is so important to speak out and to continue to pressure and hold them accountable to service the needs of our community.”

Commitment for a New Village Hospital by the people of the West Village and all of New York City has not wavered. Any politician not actively working to get a new hospital is a target. That is a promise the St. Vincent’s Hospital Community Activists intend to keep.

Before the sit-in took place, it appears that the activists held a "peoples trial" of politicians, on whose watch St. Vincent's closed. According to the description of the YouTube video, an unidentified Hands Off member made the following statement : "We hold the elected officials responsible for betraying their very own constituency."

On her blog, the artist and political commentator Suzannah B. Troy broke the news of the activists getting arrested at St. Vincent's. Ms. Troy made the observation that Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn recently pushed through a new smoking ban in public parks as a sign of their concern for public health, but Ms. Troy questions their commitment if politicians have made no commitment to save city hospitals from closing.